Author(s): Erin Moore

Presentation: poster

There has been a recent push in social media and in helping professions to use sex-positive language because they claim it isolates people who do not fit into the typical model of sexuality. Examples of words or phrases that are considered sex-positive versus sex-negative are: first sexual experience versus losing their virginity, sex worker versus whore, and trans individual versus transvestite. I hypothesized that using sex positive language as well as different gender pronouns when discussing a sexual situation would have an effect on how the situation is perceived. To test this I ran a study with 73 participants that were randomly assigned to one of four different questionnaires. Each questionnaire had a variance of sex positive or negative statement and male or female subjects. My results showed that the use of sex positive language did in fact make a different in how the participants perceived the statements.

The College of Idaho     2112 Cleveland Blvd Caldwell, ID  8360     USA 208-459-5011    800-2C-IDAHO